“I want you now.” Breena bit her lip, tingling warmth spooling everywhere. He kept circling his fingers over her, so gently the sensations were both maddeningly pleasing and wickedly frustrating. His touch was deliberate and light, his hand working magic, taking her higher and higher into a glorious realm that was surely the home of angels.
“Please, hurry, I can’t bear it,” she gasped when he traced one long finger gently down the center of her. “Please, don’t make me wait.”
“So eager are you, my minx?” He lifted his hand, stopping the caresses.
“Yes!” Breena raised her hips again, seeking his pleasure-spending fingers. She would die if he didn’t touch her again.
When he arched a brow, looking amused, she knew she’d spoken the last words aloud.
“Nae, you willnae,” he said, confirming it. He watched her carefully, one corner of his mouth hitching up in a smile that melted her. “But it might feel that way when I do this…”
He stopped running one finger up and down the length of her and touched a spot that sent rippling streams of intense pleasure spiraling all through her. When he began circling that place, rubbing slowly but insistently, she inhaled sharply. Her world darkened and then shattered, splitting wide to cast her into a dazzling sea of such reckless, unrestrained sensation that her entire body quivered.
“Oh, my…” She turned her head to the side, closing her eyes as wave after wave of pleasure washed over her. “What have you done?”
“Only what I intend to do every day of our lives together, please you again and again.” He lowered his head and kissed her, this time long, deep, and slow. They melded against each other, sinking into the kiss so that it was sweet, wondrous, and so right that her heart swelled with such fierce love she could hardly contain the happiness inside her.
“I’ve waited so long to have you.” Grim pulled back, looked deep into her eyes. “Now you are mine. I love you more than my own life. I’m just no’ sure what you see in me.”
“My entire world, that’s what.” She slipped one hand around his nape, drawing him closer so they could kiss again. She’d never have enough of his kisses, not even if they lived a thousand years.
Then she heard the rustle of the bed sheets as, still kissing her, he eased her onto her back and rolled on top of her. He braced his weight on his arms and reached down between them, grasping himself to nudge his hardness against her, parting and gliding into her, making her his at last.
He kept his hand on her intimate flesh, resting one finger gently atop the sensitive place she hadn’t known existed. He rubbed her there, a light circling touch that again brought her so much bliss as he stroked in and out of her. She gripped his shoulders, knowing how much she pleased him when he inhaled sharply and his entire body jerked, the hot seed of his release spilling inside her.
“Breena,” he hissed her name, straining, his head thrown back as he stared up at the room’s black-raftered ceiling. “Sweet, sweet lass, I love you so.”
“And I you.” She thrust her fingers into his hair, gripping tight as her own pleasure crested again. The wonder of it, the delicious fullness of having him so intimately joined to her, flowed over her as a molten tide, stunning and glorious. She arched in delight, her world narrowing until she only knew darkness and sensation. Then, as if from a great distance yet still close, Grim’s words of love.
She must’ve slept, because the cold wakened her some hours later. She saw at once that it was still night, for the moon had risen. Silvery light slipped through the shutter slats, giving the room a pearly luminescence. The wind had died and in the stillness she caught the rush of the burn that ran through the farm’s birchwood.
She scarce noticed, because Grim had left the bed.
The sheets beside her were chilled, so he must’ve been gone a while.
For a beat, panic seized her. Had she disappointed him in some way? Did he regret his avowals of love and, especially, making her his wife in the old way of the ancients? Could he have remembered her lowly birth and changed his mind about their union , deciding he did indeed need a gentle-born wife? Had he perhaps left her?
She pushed the notions aside as soon as they came to her.
He’d made his feelings clear, opened his heart to her.
She didn’t doubt him.
But she did miss him, his warmth and the feel of his great, hard-muscled body next to her.
“I was thanking my gods for the gift of you, that is all.” His deep voice came from the shadows, a corner with a window edged silver by the moon.
He stood there, full naked and magnificent, the pale light gilding him so that he could have passed for one of the Norse gods he worshipped.